Arrow’s Echo Kellum Responds to The Terrifics

Over the weekend, DC announced that they were launching a new series, The Terrifics, which would spin out of the events of the Dark Nights: Metal event. And what kind of comic book fans would we have been if we didn’t ask Mister Terrific himself, Arrow‘s Echo Kellum, for his take?

The series, which seems to borrow heavily from Marvel’s Fantastic Four, features Mr. Terrific, Plastic Man, Metamorpho, and Phantom Girl, will launch later in the year as part of DC’s “Dark Matter” wave of titles.

“About time I’m a franchise!” joked Kellum before adding, “That’s super cool. I hadn’t heard about that ….I want to read this, when’s it come out?”

(We assured him that we would make sure he got one on set in Vancouver.)

Recently, Scott Snyder — who is one of the architects of the Metal event that will lead to “Dark Matter,” described it as an “engine of new,” saying that the goal was to do a Crisis on Infinite Earths-style story that doesn’t fall back on the same characters and tropes that have been occupying those stories at DC for thirty-plus years.

“The story is really simple: The Justice League discovers there is a dark multiverse; they also discover that because of something that Batman did, it’s invading right now, after thousands of years of waiting — and if they don’t find more Nth metal, which is one of the rarest things in the universe, to stop it, they are completely screwed.”

By a “dark multiverse,” Snyder was not talking about tone: he means a multiverse made up of universes that are founded on dark matter, a theoretical type of matter distinct from ordinary matter, neutrinos and dark energy.

The story launched with Dark Days: The Forge and Dark Days: The Casting already and will continue through 23 other comics — largely one-shots and a six-issue miniseries but also a four-part crossover that sees the Justice League battle the Dark Nights, an army of evil Batmen from around the Dark Multiverse.

Plastic Man and Mister Terrific both appeared in Dark Days: The Forge.